Jun. 06, 2002 - 6:32 pm

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Mean Streets (1973)

this is the earliest film by Martin Scorsese i've seen. yes, it's before Taxi Driver (1976) and i have seen that. the idea to see this came from one of the people who reads this diary. well i've decided that i officially don't like Scorsese. yes, Taxi Driver is pretty cool at points, but this one didn't speak to me. it gets a 4/10. i would've given it a 3, but there was this one really awesome shot where the camera was strapped to Harvey Keitel when he was drunk and a song by The Chips called Rubber Biscuit was playing. it weirded me out and it was great. other than that i didn't really enjoy this film though.

aaah, these "gangster" films from the early 70s. it's like for the first hour you see tons of characters doing things without being introduced at all to the viewer. like you see Robert De Niro walk up to a fat man and smack him around, but you have to wonder who is that guy and why did he do that? yeah, it's telling us about De Niro's character, but couldn't you at least have some buildup to that? whatever.

i guess i'm too far withdrawn from New York, Hell's Kitchen and all of the gangster crap that goes/went down there. i just don't feel it when i watch most crime movies. i guess it's just too different from my life.

what is the plot of this film? well there isn't a lot to it. there's a main character (Keitel) who tries to keep his best friend (De Niro) from getting too deeply in debt or getting killed. there's also a lot of religious imagery and commentary. and yeah, that's about all i have to say about plot. it wasn't very in your face. i think Scorsese often tries too much for style and there's just nothing good backing it up. see this review for further details.